"Of course, if you wish me to go, I'll go at once," said Haldane, in a despondent tone.
"And go off at half-cock into the bargain? I ain't one of the kind, you know, that talks around Robin Hood's barn. I go straight in at the front door and out at the back. It's my rough way of coming to the p'int at once. I kin see that you're runnin' behind in speret'al matters, and I believe that my cussedness is part to blame. You don't feel good as you used to. It would never do to git down at the heel in these matters, 'cause the poorest timber in the market is yer old backsliders. I'd rather be what I am than be a backslider. The right way is to take these things in time, before you git agoin' down hill too fast. It isn't that I want to git rid of you at all. I've kinder got used to you, and like to have you 'round 'mazingly; but I don't s'pose it's possible for you to feel right and live with me, and so you had better cut stick in time, for you must keep a-feelin' good and pi'us-like, my boy, or it's all up with you."
"Then you don't want me to go for the sake of your own comfort?"
"Not a bit of it. I only want you to git inter a place that isn't so morally pisened as this, where I do so much cussin'; for I will and must cuss as long as there's an atom left of me as big as a head of a pin. A-a-h!"
"Then I prefer to take my chances with you to going anywhere else."
"Think twice."
"I have thought more than twice."
"Then yer blood be on yer own head," said Mr. Growther with tragic solemnity, as if he were about to take Haldane's life. "My skirts is clear after this warnin'."
"Indeed they are. You haven't done me a bit of harm."
"Where does the trouble come from then? Who is a-harmin' you?"